[[File:The Orbit 2016 Alexa December.png|thumbnail|225px|right|According to the web traffic tracking company [[Alexa]], The Orbit began losing global market share in August 2016.]]

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[[File:The Orbit alexa 9-4-2017.png|thumbnail|225px|center|In 2016, The Orbit website lost a considerable amount of its global market share according to the web traffic tracking company [[Alexa]]. On September 4, 2017 it was the 357,369th most popular website in the world according to Alexa. ]]

{{Cquote|Nearly two dozen atheist bloggers — many from [[Freethought Blogs]], along with a few others from Patheos, [[Skepchick]], and independent sites — are about to launch a new website called The Orbit. (The site isn’t functional just yet, but it should come online soon.)

{{Cquote|Nearly two dozen atheist bloggers — many from [[Freethought Blogs]], along with a few others from Patheos, [[Skepchick]], and independent sites — are about to launch a new website called The Orbit. (The site isn’t functional just yet, but it should come online soon.)

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I’m speculating here, but I suspect at least some of the Orbit writers are heading to the new site in part to get out from under his shadow and away from his burn-all-bridges. Maybe I’m wrong.<ref>[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/04/08/atheist-ireland-publicly-dissociates-from-blogger-pz-myers/ reputation Several Atheist Bloggers Are Moving to “The Orbit”] by Hemant Mehta</ref>}}

I’m speculating here, but I suspect at least some of the Orbit writers are heading to the new site in part to get out from under his shadow and away from his burn-all-bridges. Maybe I’m wrong.<ref>[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/04/08/atheist-ireland-publicly-dissociates-from-blogger-pz-myers/ reputation Several Atheist Bloggers Are Moving to “The Orbit”] by Hemant Mehta</ref>}}

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=== May 5, 2017 Alexa ranking of The Orbit ===

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[[File:The Orbit.png|thumbnail|225px|center|On May 5, 2017, The Orbit has an Alexa ranking of 326,415 which means that according to Alexa it was the 326,415th most popular website in the world.]]

One of the reasons why some atheist participate in internet atheism is that offline participation in the atheist community is often difficult.[3]

In an essay entitled How the Atheist Movement Failed Me, an atheist woman noted that participation in the atheist community is often expensive due to the cost of attending atheist conferences and even local atheist meetings in restaurants and bars challenged her modest budget.[3] As a result of the challenges that atheists commonly have in terms of socializing in person, many atheists turn to the internet in terms of communicating with other atheists.

In addition, Conatus News indicates:

“

The overwhelming anti-atheist sentiment in society means most don’t feel comfortable outwardly proclaiming their lack of faith. So instead of congregating in a large building on Sunday, many atheists have found their own community online.

This societal stigma is certainly part of the reason atheists seem so drawn to internet interactions. Anonymity, or at least the safety of separation from those around you, provides the ability to truly speak one’s mind.[4]

Internet atheism web traffic levels

During the period of 2008 to 2012, the atheist community made a concerted effort to spread atheism through means of the internet. However, leading atheist websites saw plunges in web traffic during the latter period of this time.[2]

In 2016, an article entitled 2015 was a terrible year for internet atheism featured Alexa web traffic graphs which indicated that some prominent atheist websites lost a significant portion of their global market share.[6] Since 2012, Freethought Blogs (a collection of atheist bloggers) saw a significant decline in its web traffic.[7]

In 2007, the Bible believer Chuck Norris noted that atheists were making a concerted effort to spread atheism via the internet. As you you will soon see via the graphs below, it has been an abysmal failure! The atheist community flooded the internet with a lot of shallow, ill-reasoned fluff that many in the public quickly dismissed.[8]

Atheists are making a concerted effort to win the youth of America and the world. Hundreds of websites and blogs on the Internet seek to convince and convert adolescents, endeavoring to remove any residue of theism from their minds and hearts by packaging atheism as the choice of a new generation. While you think your kids are innocently surfing the Web, secular progressives are intentionally preying on their innocence and naïveté.

What's preposterous is that atheists are now advertising and soliciting on websites particularly created for teens...[1]

The Guardian wrote about Atheism plus and the reaction of many atheists on the internet:

“

In the passionate world of American atheism, the venom usually directed at believers has now been turned against the wrong kind of atheists...

It took 700 years from Constantine renaming Byzantium in his own honour to papal legates circulating letters of anathema that split the Roman and Orthodox churches. Atheism, in its public, online life, has started exchanging internet anathemas – perhaps we should call them inathemas – in little more than a decade.[9]

Atheism is in decline worldwide, with the number of atheists falling from 4.5% of the world’s population in 1970 to 2.0% in 2010 and projected to drop to 1.8% by 2020, according to a new report by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (GCTS) in South Hamilton, Mass."[11]

”

In 2011, the American Spectator citing research published in the International Bulletin of Missionary Research reported that atheism is on the decline as a whole in terms of adherents.[12]

The American Spectator declared:

“

The report estimates about 80,000 new Christians every day, 79,000 new Muslims every day, and 300 fewer atheists every day. These atheists are presumably disproportionately represented in the West, while religion is thriving in the Global South, where charismatic Christianity is exploding."[12]

Elevatorgate and Richard Dawkins' loss of online influence

Richard Dawkins is still widely criticized for causing embarrassment to his fellow atheists via his Elevatorgate controversy and for igniting deep fractures in the atheist movement.[13]

For example, on November 26, 2013, the atheist activist and blogger Jen McCreight posted at Twitter the message: "Did anyone on Dawkins AMA ask how he feels about singlehandedly destroying the atheist movement with the Dear Muslima yet?"[14] In December 2013, atheist Jack Vance at Atheist Revolution called July 2, 2011, which is the day that Elevatorgate occurred, "The day the atheist movement died."[15]

Graph showing Richard Dawkins' loss of influence post Elevatatorgate

As can be seen by the graph below, by means of embedded code on his website from Quantcast, Quantcast directly measured the web traffic of Richard Dawkins' website. Traffic to Dawkins website is significantly down post-Elevatorgate scandal.

According to the web traffic tracking company Quantcast, the web traffic of Richard Dawkins' website fell in 2012.[16] By October 2014, the web traffic for his website fell to a lower level according to Quantcast.[17]

The above graph shows the monthly website traffic to Richard Dawkins' website as of June 22, 2015 in terms of unique monthly web visitors.[19] As you can see above, in 2012, Richard Dawkins saw a very large decrease in web traffic. The website traffic is measured via Quantcast which directly measures Dawkins' website traffic via embedded code on his website.[18]

Freethought Blogs

Alexa ranking of Freethought Blogs

In 2016, Freethought Blogs lost a considerable amount of global market share according to the web traffic tracking company Alexa.

Freethought Blogs is a spinoff of ScienceBlogs launched by PZ Myers and Ed Brayton. Alexa is a web traffic tracking company. In 2015 and 2016, Freethought blogs saw a large decrease in its Alexa ranking.

Freethought Blogs fell sharply in its Alexa ranking for much of the latter part of 2016

.

In May 2017, according to Alexa, Frrethoughtblogs continued to lose global market share.

According to Alexa, on September 4, 2017, Freethought Blogs was the 71,540th most popular website in the world.

Freethought Blogs appear to receive significantly less traffic from women

The website Freethought Blogs has significantly less women visiting their website than men according to the web traffic tracking company Quantcast.[20] According to the website tracking firm Quantcast, women frequent Richard Dawkins' website significantly less than men.[21]

The Orbit

In 2016, The Orbit website lost a considerable amount of its global market share according to the web traffic tracking company Alexa. On September 4, 2017 it was the 357,369th most popular website in the world according to Alexa.

Nearly two dozen atheist bloggers — many from Freethought Blogs, along with a few others from Patheos, Skepchick, and independent sites — are about to launch a new website called The Orbit. (The site isn’t functional just yet, but it should come online soon.)

Reddit atheism

In 2013 Reddit atheism lost its main page status

In 2013 it suffered a major setback as it lost its status as a default subreddit (default subreddits are the forums that all non-logged in users see when they visit the site. In other words, the atheism subreddit was removed from its homepage).[24]

In 2016, due to Reddit removing inactive "ghost accounts", Reddit reduced the amount of members in Reddit atheism by 10,000 user accounts.[25]

Reddit atheism has a bad reputation

A June 14, 2013 Mashable article declared: "In recent years, r/atheism has become known for memes, images, quote pictures and other content viewed by some as "low brow."[23]

According to the website Motherboard.com, "The term “reddit atheist” has evolved as a shorthand in recent years for a negative internet cliché, that of the rabid Richard Dawkins supporter, the mansplainer..." [25]

Historically, the atheist population has often used mockery as a substitution for reasonable discussion/debate and Reddit atheism is a continuation of this tradition (see: Atheism and mockery).

Reddit atheism and their reluctance to engage in offline atheist activism

In May 2013, Policymic published an article on Reddit atheism which indicated that Reddit atheists are reluctant to share their atheism offline.[26]

The Policymic article declared:

“

Are we to make cowards out of Reddit’s atheists for the discrepancy between the prevalence of real life and internet proclamations of godlessness? Maybe, as the world’s loudest atheist, Richard Dawkins, first bemoaned in his TED talk, “Atheists do not want to be impolite … Can we stop being so damned polite?” Or, as R/atheist stalwart with the username “blackstar9000” explained in a very thoughtful post on the state of the atheist subreddit, “Many of the users are just recently converted, who fear being ostracized by people the religious people who make up their support system.”[26]

”

Atheists have a reputation for apathy and cowardice when it comes to sharing their atheism with others and defending atheism against valid criticism (See: Atheism and apathy and Atheism and cowardice).

YouTube atheism/evolutionism

Atheists are making a concerted effort to win the youth of America and the world. Hundreds of websites and blogs on the Internet seek to convince and convert adolescents, endeavoring to remove any residue of theism from their minds and hearts by packaging atheism as the choice of a new generation. While you think your kids are innocently surfing the Web, secular progressives are intentionally preying on their innocence and naivete.

What's preposterous is that atheists are now advertising and soliciting on websites particularly created for teens.

YouTube, the most popular video site on the Net for young people, is one of their primary avenues for passing off their secularist propaganda.[1]

In October 2016, a video entitled What Killed YouTube Atheism? was released which gave a few reasons why YouTube atheism saw a big decline.[28]

In addition, a December 2015 video entitled How Feminism destroyed 'New Atheism', YouTube atheist/evolutionist Thunderf00t pointed out that merely 2 out of 7 YouTube atheist/evolutionist channels that he plugged in the past are now active.[29]

Atheist PZ Myers says atheists are largely a population of internet nerds and geeks

If we're going to expand our base and we're going to draw in more people to recognize the virtues of living in a secular world, we need to appeal to more than just that geek and nerd subset of the population. We need to have a wider base. ...I seriously believe that we're on the cusp of a crisis. We're not there yet but it's looming in front of us. Will we adapt and thrive and change the world? Or will we remain an avocation for a prosperous and largely irrelevant subset of the population? Will we become something more than a scattered society of internet nerds? That's what we have to do.[30]

”

In response, Evolution News and Views wrote:

“

A crisis looms, in Myers's view, because he looks around himself and sees a not very promising basis for a mass movement. He's right. There is indeed a quality of geeky isolation from reality, common sense, and the fullness of life that I see as a motif in atheist and Darwin activism alike.[30]

TheAmazingAtheist is YouTube's most subscribed to YouTube channel produced by an atheist and as of February 2012 it had over 280,000 subscribers. In 2012, he viciously told a rape victim "you deserved it" and told her that her rapist "deserved a medal". He also told her that she should try to relive the rape in her mind.

And has also offered a graphic descriptions of how he would rape a rape victim again.

This is in keeping with his modis operandi which, sadly, is a manner whereby some people get and keep a lot of attention. Of course, it is pathetic that some people are so very desperate for attention that they seek it regardless of whether it is good, bad or ugly.

This particular Atheist is the organizer of a group, aptly, called The Atheist Scum United and refers to himself as “God of the Godless,” “subhuman,” and “scumbag.” Could not have said it better ourselves.

But the belligerence does not stop at his victimization of rape victims but he also takes aim at the dead. He has referred to people who committed suicide due to bullying as having been "weak."

What such a person needs, truly needs, is love and prayer because they are obviously hurting very, very badly.[32]

”

Atheism websites and polyamory

Polyamory is a general term to denote relationships involving a group of men and women. In polyamorous relationships, often one man is “dating” several women and each of the women is in turn dating several men.[34]

Polyskeptic.com and polyamory

The website Polyskeptic.com has an Alexa traffic rank of 2,276,133 as of June 14, 2012.[35]

Atheist Nexus and polyamory

The website Atheist Nexus bills itself as "The World’s Largest Coalition of Nontheists and Nontheist Communities."[36] As of June 14, 2012, the website Atheist Nexus had an entire group devoted to polyamory.[37]

Wikipedia on polyamory

The website Wikipedia was co-founded by the atheist Jimmy Wales and the agnostic Larry Sanger. Wikipedia has a pro-atheism/evolution slant.

For example, the current Wikipedia article on atheism is very flattering to atheism. As of June 14, 2012 the Wikipedia atheism article does not explicitly mention the tens of millions who died under atheist communist regimes although it does allude to it. Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term "democide" (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that communism caused the death of approximately 110,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.[38] Starting on February 20, 2007, Wikipedia had a hotly-debated article on militant atheism that was deleted on February 18, 2012.[39][40]

As of June 14, 2012 Wikipedia had this flattering description of polyamory:

“

Polyamory, often abbreviated as poly, is often described as consensual, ethical, or responsible non-monogamy. The word is sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to sexual or romantic relationships that are not sexually exclusive, though there is disagreement on how broadly it applies; an emphasis on ethics, honesty, and transparency all around is widely regarded as the crucial defining characteristic.[41]

Internet atheism and obesity

The 20% of overweight people who are able to achieve permanent weight loss typically report doing it through engaging in high levels of physical activity, eating a low-calorie, low-fat diet, eating breakfast regularly, self-monitoring weight, and maintaining a consistent eating pattern across weekdays and weekends.[44] Overweight individuals may need to decrease their computer and internet usage.[45]

In an essay entitled How the Atheist Movement Failed Me, an atheist woman noted that participation in the atheist community is often expensive due to the cost of attending atheist conferences and even local atheist meetings in restaurants and bars challenged her modest budget.[3] As a result of the challenges that atheists commonly have in terms of socializing in person, many atheists turn to the internet in terms of communicating with other atheists.[46]

In 2009, an Australian university study was done concerning the association between leisure time internet and computer use with being overweight and/or obese and also sedentary.[45] The study concluded: "These findings suggest that, apart from nutritional and physical activity interventions, it may also be necessary to decrease time spent in sedentary behaviors, such as leisure-time Internet and computer use, in order to reduce the prevalence of overweight and obesity."[45] See also: Bariatric science

If we're going to expand our base and we're going to draw in more people to recognize the virtues of living in a secular world, we need to appeal to more than just that geek and nerd subset of the population. We need to have a wider base. ...I seriously believe that we're on the cusp of a crisis. We're not there yet but it's looming in front of us. Will we adapt and thrive and change the world? Or will we remain an avocation for a prosperous and largely irrelevant subset of the population? Will we become something more than a scattered society of internet nerds? That's what we have to do.[30]

The popular Christian YouTube video creator Shockofgod just released a hilarious video entitled Proof atheism & evolution are stupid.

On the video, he first did a Google search at Google USA for the word "atheism". The #1 search result for atheism was for the website of the American Atheists organization and they misspelled the words "separation" and "church" on the main page title tag for their website. The title of their website reads: "Supporting Civil Rights for Atheists and the Seperation of Curch and ...". Did the American Atheist organization's webmaster go to one of the many evolution indoctrinating public schools with a high drop out rate? It appears so!

In the United States, due to more women and southerners attending college/universities, atheism is now negatively correlated with education.

As a result, American atheists contribute some of the most ill-informed/uneducated commentary on the internet.

Alexa is a popular web traffic tracking company. Below is a portion of Alexa's site overview for the website of the American Atheists organization and notice that 5.01% of their search engine traffic comes from the keyword "athiest" which is a misspelling of the world atheist.

From the Alexa website on October 17, 2014:

Site Overview

atheists.org

Top Keywords from Search Engines
Which search keywords send traffic to this site?